Download or read book Socratic Perplexity and the Nature of Philosophy written by Gareth B. Matthews and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gareth Matthews suggests that we can better understand the nature of philosophical inquiry if we recognize the central role played by perplexity. The seminal representation of philosophical perplexity is in Plato's dialogues; Matthews examines the intriguing shifts in Plato's attitude to perplexity and suggests that these may represent a course of philosophical development that philosophers follow even today.
Download or read book Socrates A Guide for the Perplexed written by Sara Ahbel-Rappe and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Socrates is regarded as the founder of Western philosophical inquiry. Yet he left no writings and claimed to know 'nothing fine or worthy.' he spent his life perplexing those who encountered him and is as important and perplexing now as he was 2500 years ago. Drawing on the various competing sources for Socrates that are available, Socrates: A Guide for the Perplexed guides the reader through the main themes and ideas of Socrates' thought. Taking into account the puzzles surrounding his trial and death, the philosophical methods and ethical positions associated with him, and his lasting influence, Sara Ahbel-Rappe presents a concise and accessible introduction. She concludes by suggesting that it is in fact the Socratic insistence on self-knowledge that makes Socrates at once so pivotal and so elusive for the student of philosophy.
Download or read book Augustine written by Gareth B. Matthews and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lucid survey takes readers on a thought-provoking tour through the life and work of Augustine. Explores new insights into one of antiquity’s most important philosophers Topics Include: skepticism, language acquisition, mind-body dualism, philosophical dream problems, time and creation, faith and reason, foreknowledge and free will, and Augustine’s standing as a ‘Socratic philosopher’.
Download or read book The Socratic Tradition written by Matti Sintonen and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Man by nature desires to know, and the most natural way of satisfying this desire is to find answers to the questions that arise from wonder and perplexity. Questioning is our default view of method. I was turned into a cornerstone of western thought in the Socratic elenchus and Aristotles doctrine of explanation and inquiry. Aristotles dialogical games, especially as they find expression in Topics, survived medieval dialectical games and had a profound impact on practices in academic life. And even when Aristotelianism came under fire during the renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, questioning as method was not jettisoned but rather transformed into a new form in which the questions were to be addressed to Nature herself. Questioning is not just a method but also a philosophy in its own right. Man not only desires to know, but wonder and perplexity are at the very heart of mans essence. As Karl- Otto Apel persuasively argues, Gadamers Truth and Method was not just, or perhaps even mainly, a methodological insight into how knowledge was to be obtained. Rather, in philosophical hermeneutics questioning has a more profound standing, marking, as Apel puts it, "logos-reflection" and hence dialogue in the full sense. This collection of essays by leading philosophers probes questioning as philosophy and as method both from a historical and a systematic perspective. The authors include J. Hintikka, P. Aubenque, R. Smith, M.-L. Kakkuri-Knuuttila, E. Moutsopoulos, T. Calvo Martinez, M. Yrjonsuuri, J.-F. Courtine, K.-O. Appel, V. A. Lektorsky, G. Schurz, M. Sintonen, and W. Rabinowicz & L. Bovens
Download or read book Socrates written by Gregory Vlastos and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1991-04-11 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This long-awaited study of the most enigmatic figure of Greek philosophy reclaims Socrates' ground-breaking originality. Written by a leading historian of Greek thought, it argues for a Socrates who, though long overshadowed by his successors Plato and Aristotle, marked the true turning point in Greek philosophy, religion and ethics. The quest for the historical figure focuses on the Socrates of Plato's earlier dialogues, setting him in sharp contrast to that other Socrates of later dialogues, where he is used as a mouthpiece for Plato's often anti-Socratic doctrine. At the heart of the book is the paradoxical nature of Socratic thought. But the paradoxes are explained, not explained away. The book highlights the tensions in the Socratic search for the answer to the question 'How should we live?' Conceived as a divine mandate, the search is carried out through elenctic argument, and dominated by an uncompromising rationalism. The magnetic quality of Socrates' personality is allowed to emerge throughout the book. Clearly and forcefully written, philosophically sophisticated but entirely accessible to non-specialists, this book will be of major importance and interest to all those studying ancient philosophy and the history of Western thought.
Download or read book Why Plato Lost Interest in the Socratic Method written by Gareth B. Matthews and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-11-07 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Socratic method of questioning and refutation (elenchus) predominates the early Platonic dialogues. But things change in the middle dialogues, as Socrates goes beyond merely asking questions and begins to provide answers to his questions. And the method virtually disappears in the late dialogues. The standard explanation of this phenomenon is that the early dialogues were intended to commemorate Socrates and the elenchus, while in the middle and late dialogues Plato went beyond Socrates to present his own mature philosophical thought. In this book, Matthews revises this explanation by uncovering the shortcomings that Plato came to find in the Socratic method and the reasons why Plato lost interest in it.
Download or read book Socratic Questions written by Barry S. Gower and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1992, introduces some of Socrates’ problems and some of the problems about him. It seeks at the same time to advance new views, arguments and information on Socrates’ mission, techniques, ethics and later reception. From civil disobedience to ethics, this collection provides stimulating discussions of Socrates’ life, thought and historical significance.
Download or read book Religious Ethics written by William Schweiker and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inclusive and innovative account of religious ethical thinking and acting in the world. Rather than merely applying existing forms of philosophical ethics, Religious Ethics defines the meaning of the field and presents a distinct and original method for ethical reflection through comparisons of world religious traditions. Written by leading scholars and educators in the field, this unique volume offers an innovative approach that reveals how religions concur and differ on moral matters, and provides practical guidance on thinking and living ethically. The book’s innovative method—integrating descriptive, normative, practical, fundamental, and metaethical dimensions of reflection—enables a far more complex and nuanced exploration of religious ethics than any single philosophical language, method, or theory can equal. First introducing the task of religious ethics, the book moves through each of the five dimensions of reflection to compare concepts such as good and evil, perplexity and wisdom, truth and illusion, and freedom and bondage in various theological contexts. Guides readers on understanding, assessing, and comparing the moral teachings and practices of world religions Applies a disciplined, scholarly approach to the subject of religious ethics Explores the distinctions between religious ethics and moral philosophy Provides a methodology which can be applied to comparative ethics for various religions Compares religious traditions to illuminate each of the five dimensions of ethical and moral reflection Religious Ethics: Meaning and Method will help anyone interested in the relation between religion and ethics in the modern world, including those involved in general and comparative religion studies, religious and comparative ethics, and moral theory.
Download or read book Philosophy and Education written by Joanna Haynes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-13 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written specifically for education studies students, this accessible text offers a clear introduction to philosophy and education. It skilfully guides readers through this challenging and sometimes complex area bringing key philosophical ideas and questions to life in the context and practice of education. There is also a companion website to accompany the book, featuring live weblinks for each activity which can be visited at www.routledge.com/cw/haynes. The authors consider the implications of educational trends and movements through a variety of philosophical lenses such as Marxism, utopianism, feminism and poststructuralism. The book explores enduring themes such as childhood and contemporary issues such as the teaching of critical thinking and philosophy in schools. Features include: a range of individual and group activities that invite questioning and discussion case studies and examples from a variety of formal and informal education settings and contexts reference to philosophically informed practices of research, reading, writing and teaching suggestions for further reading in philosophy and education overviews and - and key questions for each chapter Drawing on readers’ experiences of education, the book reveals the connections between philosophical ideas and educational policy and practice. Part of the Foundations in Education Studies series, this timely textbook is essential reading for students coming to the study of philosophy and education for the first time.
Download or read book Remembering Socrates written by Lindsay Judson and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2006-01-05 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lindsay Judson and Vassilis Karasmanis present a selection of philosophical papers by an outstanding international team of scholars, assessing the legacy and continuing relevance of Socrates' thought 2,400 years after his death. Socrates' life, philosophical activity, and death not only had a formative effect on his follower Plato, and thus indirectly on almost the whole course of Greek philosophy, but also represented a moral and philosophical ideal which has been the inspiration, or the despair, of many philosophers and other thinkers down to the present day. The topics of the papers include Socratic method as portrayed by Plato and by Xenophon; the notion of definition; Socrates' intellectualist conception of ethics; famous arguments in the Euthyphro and Crito, and a not-so famous argument in the Hippias Major; and aspects of the later portrayal and reception of Socrates as a philosophical and ethical exemplar - by Plato, the Sceptics, and in the early Christian era. The collection demonstrates the vitality as well as the diversity of Socratic studies, and will interest many ancient philosophers, historians of philosophy, and classicists.
Download or read book Plato s Parmenides written by Samuel Scolnicov and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-07-08 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all Plato’s dialogues, the Parmenides is notoriously the most difficult to interpret. Scholars of all periods have disagreed about its aims and subject matter. The interpretations have ranged from reading the dialogue as an introduction to the whole of Platonic metaphysics to seeing it as a collection of sophisticated tricks, or even as an elaborate joke. This work presents an illuminating new translation of the dialogue together with an extensive introduction and running commentary, giving a unified explanation of the Parmenides and integrating it firmly within the context of Plato's metaphysics and methodology. Scolnicov shows that in the Parmenides Plato addresses the most serious challenge to his own philosophy: the monism of Parmenides and the Eleatics. In addition to providing a serious rebuttal to Parmenides, Plato here re-formulates his own theory of forms and participation, arguments that are central to the whole of Platonic thought, and provides these concepts with a rigorous logical and philosophical foundation. In Scolnicov's analysis, the Parmenides emerges as an extension of ideas from Plato's middle dialogues and as an opening to the later dialogues. Scolnicov’s analysis is crisp and lucid, offering a persuasive approach to a complicated dialogue. This translation follows the Greek closely, and the commentary affords the Greekless reader a clear understanding of how Scolnicov’s interpretation emerges from the text. This volume will provide a valuable introduction and framework for understanding a dialogue that continues to generate lively discussion today.
Download or read book Dictionary of World Philosophy written by A. Pablo Iannone and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dictionary of World Philosophy covers the diverse and challenging terminology, concepts, schools and traditions of the vast field of world philosophy. Providing an extremely comprehensive resource and an essential point of reference in a complex and expanding field of study the Dictionary covers all major subfields of the discipline. Key features: * Cross-references are used to highlight interconnections and the cross-cultural diffusion and adaptation of terms which has taken place over time * The user is led from specific terms to master entries which provide valuable historical and cultural context * Each master entry is followed by at least two suggestions for further reading on the subject, creating a substantial bibliography of world philosophy * References extend beyond philosophy to related areas such as cognitive science, computer science, language and physics Subdisciplines covered include:* aesthetics * ethics * sociopolitical philosophy * the philosophy of law * epistemology * logic * the philosophy of science * the philosophy of mind * the philosophy of culture and history * metaphysics * the philosophy of religion Entries are drawn from West Africa, Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Jewish, Korean, Latin American, Maori and Native American philosophy including the important and so far largely neglected instance of Pre-Hispanic thought: Nahua philosophy.
Download or read book Belief and Truth written by Katja Maria Vogt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Katja Maria Vogt's Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato explores a Socratic intuition about the difference between belief and knowledge. Beliefs -- doxai -- are deficient cognitive attitudes. In believing something, one accepts some content as true without knowing that it is true; one holds something to be true that could turn out to be false. Since our actions reflect what we hold to be true, holding beliefs is potentially harmful for oneself and others. Accordingly, beliefs are ethically worrisome and even, in the words of Plato's Socrates, "shameful." As Vogt argues, this is a serious philosophical proposal and it speaks to intuitions we are likely to share. But it involves a notion of belief that is rather different from contemporary notions. Today, it is a widespread assumption that true beliefs are better than false beliefs, and that some true beliefs (perhaps those that come with justifications) qualify as knowledge. Socratic epistemology offers a genuinely different picture. In aiming for knowledge, one must aim to get rid of beliefs. Knowledge does not entail belief -- belief and knowledge differ in such important ways that they cannot both count as kinds of belief. As long as one does not have knowledge, one should reserve judgment and investigate by thinking through possible ways of seeing things. According to Vogt, the ancient skeptics and Stoics draw many of these ideas from Plato's dialogues, revising Socratic-Platonic arguments as they see fit. Belief and Truth retraces their steps through interpretations of the Apology, Ion, Republic, Theaetetus, and Philebus, reconstructs Pyrrhonian investigation and thought, and illuminates the connections between ancient skepticism and relativism, as well as the Stoic view that beliefs do not even merit the evaluations "true" and "false."
Download or read book The Philosophy of Socrates written by Gregory Vlastos and published by University of Notre Dame Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Socrates of Plato's early dialogues is the focus of this collection of essays. Scholars of Socrates discuss the problem of our knowing the historical Socrates, the Socratic method of examining the statements of others, Socratic definition, and the concept of virtue in Socrates' thought. This anthology of essays, some written for this volume and others previously published, offers a cross section of insights and views on Socrates for the beginning student as well as for the professional philosopher.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Plato written by Gail Fine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-07 with total page 793 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plato is the best known, and continues to be the most widely studied, of all the ancient Greek philosophers. The updated and original essays in the second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Plato provide in-depth discussions of a variety of topics and dialogues, all serving several functions at once: they survey the current academic landscape; express and develop the authors' own views; and situate those views within a range of alternatives. The result is a useful state-of-the-art reference to the man many consider the most important philosophical thinker in history. This second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Plato differs in two main ways from the first edition. First, six leading scholars of ancient philosophy have contributed entirely new chapters: Hugh Benson on the Apology, Crito, and Euthyphro; James Warren on the Protagoras and Gorgias; Lindsay Judson on the Meno; Luca Castagnoli on the Phaedo; Susan Sauvé Meyer on the Laws; and David Sedley on Plato's theology. This new edition therefore covers both dialogues and topics in more depth than the first edition did. Secondly, most of the original chapters have been revised and updated, some in small, others in large, ways.
Download or read book The Oxford Companion to Philosophy written by Ted Honderich and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-03-10 with total page 1077 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oxford University Press presents a major new edition of the definitive philosophical reference work for readers at all levels. For ten years the original volume has served as a stimulating introduction for general readers and as an indispensable guide for students; its breadth and depth of coverage have ensured that it is also read with pleasure and interest by those working at a higher level in philosophy and related disciplines. A distinguished international assembly of 249 philosophers contributed almost 2,000 entries, and many of these have now been considerably revised and updated; to these are added over 300 brand-new pieces on a fascinating range of current topics. This new edition offers enlightening and enjoyable discussions of all aspects of philosophy, and of the lives and work of the great philosophers from antiquity to the present day.
Download or read book The Bloomsbury Handbook of Socrates written by Russell E. Jones and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-11-02 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook provides detailed philosophical analysis of the life and thought of Socrates across fifteen in-depth chapters. Each chapter engages with a central aspect of the rich tradition of Socratic studies and, after surveying the state of scholarship, points the way forward to new directions of interpretation. A leading team of scholars present dynamic readings of Socrates, extracted from the historical context of Plato's dialogues, covering elenchus, irony, ignorance, definitions, pedagogy, friendship, politics and the daemon. Building on these core Socratic topics, this edition includes new accounts of Socrates in the work of philosopher and historian, Xenophon, the comic playwright, Aristophanes, as well as important scholarship on topics such as emotions, the afterlife, motivational intellectualism and virtue intellectualism. Fully revised and updated, the Bloomsbury Handbook of Socrates elucidates the complex landscape of Socratic thought and interpretation.
